Another freeway pumpkin patch traffic jam? A’Mazing …

Most of my relatives have moved to the North Bay. My parents live in Healdsburg, my sister is in Santa Rosa and my aunt and her partner have a house in Sonoma County. I love them all very much, but during the month of October, they might as well cease to exist. Because I’ve had it up to here with the freaking pumpkin patch.

Ninety-five percent of you are thinking “whatever.”

But the other five percent who have sat in the frustrating traffic north of Petaluma on Highway 101, which appears every year because of gawkers staring at a pumpkin patch, know exactly what I’m talking about. Your blood pressure is rising as you read this. You want to smash something. Because you’re sick of dealing with the freaking pumpkin patch, too.

My problem isn’t with Halloween, pumpkin patches in general, or even the owners of the Petaluma Pumpkin Patch and A’Mazing Corn Maze — visible from the highway just north of the outlets in Petaluma. This is America, where you can put your corn maze wherever you want, ideally where a lot of impulse buyers can see it. Location, location, location. Plus, the owners of this maze –who I must emphasize have done absolutely nothing wrong — are clearly not happy about the fact that their Halloween destination causes an epic slowdown on the busiest path through Sonoma County every year. That’s good enough for me.

No, I place the blame squarely on the mid-size sedan-driving Linuses who decide that the sight of a completely unremarkable pumpkin patch is reason to slow their car down to a crawl, and stare in awe waiting for something exciting that never happens. On the scale of interesting things to see from the window of your car, it ranks somewhere between a car dealership and an In-n-Out Burger. And yet every other car that drives by this place slows to 2 miles per hour.

It would be understandable if this pumpkin patch was in some way exceptional to a passerby. A Children of the Corn Maze? I’d definitely shift into first gear on the freeway to see one of those.

I’ll even defend people who slow down for accidents. There’s a good chance you’re going to see something you’ve never seen before. I can see where a driver might later have regrets, after maintaining the speed limit and keeping her eyes on the road while passing a four-car pileup.

But as far as I’ve been able to tell during 15 or 20 frustrating passes over the years, there are just three things to see from this stretch of highway: Pumpkins, a jumpy house and a corn maze. And because of the angle, you can’t really make out the maze anyway, so it’s really just regular corn. YOU HEAR THAT, PEOPLE? YOU’RE SLOWING DOWN FOR REGULAR CORN. How long does it take for you to drive through Iowa? Seven years?

I’ve made a list of five things on the drive from San Francisco to Santa Rosa that are way more worth slowing down for than a pumpkin patch:

1. The Clover milk billboards. You know, the ones that make puns with the word “Clo” and feature cows dressed up like people? Mostly the designers pick predictable phrases like “Lady Clo-diva” or “Wolfgang Amadeus Moo-zart.” But every once in a while they surprise you. Much more interesting than looking at pumpkins.

2. The electronic sign advertising upcoming shows at the Marin Center. Because while I never intend to go to a Starship concert, it’s strangely comforting to know they’re still around.

3. That cool house with the oil can windmill on top near Novato. I looked it up, and it’s one of the Harkleroad buildings, built by a guy who made houses out of recycled materials. This was back in the “Mad Men” era when people looked at you like a loon when you did that sort of thing.

4. The A&W fast food restaurant in San Rafael. Seriously? There’s still a free-standing A&W around in 2011? Can we go to Shakey’s Pizza when we’re done?

5. The Marin County Civic Center. It was designed by Frank Lloyd Wright! Now if that guy designed a corn maze …

Each year, I convince myself that people will get over this non-sight, and the traffic will resume to normal. And each year I’m a little more wrong. I wasn’t surprised when I wrote about this on my Twitter account the other day, and got an outpouring of grief — as if a half dozen of my followers were sitting in the same traffic. (“The Petaluma corn maze is my nemesis,” Vicky Nguyen wrote.)

I’m starting to wonder if there are practical solutions to other problems that could come out of this inconvenience. Maybe they should scatter pumpkins and jumpy houses in school zones to get drivers to slow down. Or plant some corn near the S-curve on the Bay Bridge …

Or maybe people should just start driving with the flow of traffic. (That’s the only solution I can come up with — signs that say “Drive! It’s just a freaking corn maze!”) If you’re so hypnotized/enchanted by the place, then pull over and buy a pumpkin. We stopped there three years ago and it was actually a pretty good time.

PETER HARTLAUB is the pop culture critic at the San Francisco Chronicle and founder/editor of The Big Event. He takes requests. Contact him at phartlaub@sfchronicle.com. Follow him on Twitter at www.twitter.com/peterhartlaub. Follow The Big Event on Facebook.